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endolith
Strollin' around
Status: New idea

Mozilla Archive Format is a file type for saving complete web pages, with all related resources saved in a single zip file.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Archive_Format

  • It is superior to the current "Web page, complete" because it is a single file and can be moved and renamed without problems, and has no filesystem overhead.
  • It is superior to PDF because it doesn't divide up the web page into arbitrary page boundaries, add headers and footers, distort the layout, etc.  It can be viewed on any screen in the original intended format.
  • It is superior to MHT format because it keeps the original context of the web page as closely as possible and doesn't re-encode all the files into BASE64. They can be extracted from the archive with their original filenames and metadata, etc. or deleted from it to save space if they are inconsequential.  MAFF is a simpler, more future-proof format.

Firefox should natively save and open .maff files without a need for add-ons.  It's very frustrating that this format was created by Mozilla, we saved many web pages using it, and then Mozilla abandoned the format and removed the functionality from Firefox and made it impossible to provide through add-ons.

15 Comments
Jon
Community Manager
Community Manager

Thanks for submitting an idea to Mozilla Connect! Your post is now open to the community for votes (kudos) and comments 😀

jscher2000
Leader

For background, .maff support was provided through an extension (not built-in). That legacy extension required certain features not available to WebExtensions in Firefox 57+. Unless extension APIs are substantially enhanced, it's necessary that the feature be built-in.

endolith
Strollin' around

@jscher2000

  1. Extension APIs should be substantially enhanced.
  2. The feature should be built-in.
endolith
Strollin' around

MHT isn't even built-in!  There's no way to save a web page to a single file without an add-on.

shanen
Making moves

Would you [the submitter or any of the people reading this discussion] be willing to donate 10 bucks to help implement this?

jscher2000
Leader

> MHT isn't even built-in! 

It doesn't seem that MHT is a web standard, so Mozilla does not have the usual guidance on the best way to implement it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MHTML I guess it should follow Chromium's implementation now that Microsoft has adopted it in Edge?

> There's no way to save a web page to a single file without an add-on.

For many users, "Save to PDF" (through Print) and Firefox Screenshot are enough, But if you want to preserve the interactivity of the page, you still need some way to reliably capture the HTML and scripts together.

Kornholio
New member

Yes, I'd pay ten dollars for this feature in ANY form.

endolith
Strollin' around

@shanenI'd pay $50 to get this implemented.  (There are a lot of other things I'd like, though, so I have to think about how much I'd be willing to pay total.  😄  But if I could get back to golden era Firefox functionality I would pay quite a bit.)

@jscher2000MAFF doesn't preserve interactivity of dynamic pages, but it does preserve the original content as much as possible, which is why it's a good archival format for pages that will experience bit rot.

shanen
Making moves

Well, I'd reply directly if this system allowed it, but I don't see that option around here. The basic response to the offers is "But your $10 or $50 is not enough. What if Mozilla had a CSB (Charity Share Brokerage) mechanism to gather enough donations to pay for the feature?"

endolith
Strollin' around

@shanen  I don't even know what CSB is. Mozilla is clearly making money to pay their developers; they're just developing the wrong things.